Lay Me Down (In Lo-Debar)
by JGRhodes
Summary: It is a blessing and a curse, this place, but John can't help but be grateful for it when Sherlock lays him down and lays him open; takes him apart and puts him back together like so many cadavers.


A/N: This story was inspired, oddly enough, by my very first attempt at going to Bible Study.

Lo-Debar is a town in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 9:4-5, 17-27). The word means "No words" or "No communication."

Given that this story involves Homosexuality, I'm pretty sure this counts as Blasphemy.

I'll see you on the special bus to hell.

* * *

"We're going to talk about this," John said, stepping into the sitting room. Sherlock opens his mouth, but John cuts him off before he can get a word in edge wise. "No. Not here. Somewhere else," he says.

"Where?"

John doesn't answer. He turns and walks out of the room, down the stairs, and makes a sharp left turn at the bottom. He winds up standing in front of the entrance to 221C, heart pounding in his chest, his tongue darting out over his lips to moisten them. Sherlock is there a moment later, watching with a mild fascination as John produces the key from his pocket and opens the door, ushering him inside.

In the end they don't talk. Not with words anyway.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and Sherlock grabs him, wrapping him up in those impossibly long arms and tucking his face into the crook of John's neck. His arm is still in a sling - "Broken in two places, Sherlock! Thanks ever so! - and Sherlock is still sporting a fractured rib, and John is _still_ mad as hell, but those thoughts were all swept away when Sherlock pulls his face from its hiding place and kisses him.

He isn't shoved against a wall, Sherlock doesn't twist his good arm or bruise his lips, just kisses him softly, a feather touch against his mouth; a wordless apology.

There's bleach and ammonia in the room. There has to be. There was no other reason for John's lungs to feel this way; too big and too small at the same time, gasping and choking for air, never expanding fully, making him feel light-headed and dizzy.

He tries to speak, but Sherlock lays one long finger across his lips, silencing him gently.

Then, with a swish of his coat, he was gone.

* * *

This is how it is.

They don't talk about it. Not once do they sit down and redefine their relationship or ask "What does this mean for us?" They don't tell anyone what's happened or behave in any way that would raise suspicion. They simply…carry on.

So John returns to what he knows best and does what the army taught him to do when you're in strange waters and don't know what the bloody hell is going on. Maintain Military Silence. He never says the words, never admits the truth. He's not ready to rewrite forty years of his life just yet anyway. (But he thinks about it. Oh, does he ever.)

Sherlock doesn't make demands of him, doesn't ask for more than John is willing to give, only leads or follows when one of them takes the other by the hand and tugs them down to the dark, vacant flat. There, in that room, they forge a country, a sanctuary, where they hide from the outside world. On the exact spot where Carol Powers' shoes were found and Sherlock's fight with Moriarty truly began they build an altar to all the things they wish they had the strength to say. They build it with pillows and blankets, with Jammie Dodgers and an electric kettle, with kisses and smiles and touches and they decorate it with words that never see the light of day.

_I'm sorry._

_ I care about you._

_ Forgive me._

_ I want to be with you._

_ You matter to me._

_ Will we ever stop pretending?_

_ I love you._

Silence reigns here. Only the sound of skin on skin and hushed, rapid breaths are heard within the hallowed walls; scurrying towards the dark corners and hiding there, lest they be found later and examined by anxious hearts.

Anything more is tantamount to sacrilege.

It is a blessing and a curse, this place, this modern-day Lo-Debar, but John can't help but be grateful for it when Sherlock lays him down and lays him open; takes him apart and puts him back together like so many cadavers, until he knows everything about John's body, from the way his nostrils flare when he arches his back in pleasure to the way his eyelids flutter when Sherlock slips his long, nimble fingers inside him.

He makes a study of John Watson, pushes the soldiers' boundaries until one or both of them teeters on the edge of madness, and inscribes his finding on his very soul.

But John is studying him, too. He's watching the machine become a man, watching the heart he swore he didn't have blossom and come to life, watching those ice blue eyes melt into warm pools. He sees more than Sherlock gives him credit for. The devil is in the details, as they say, and John finds himself using Sherlock's methods of deduction to further wrap his maddening flatmate up in their world. He observes what happens when he tugs on those long dark curls, the way Sherlock's toes curl when his spine is stroked, the breathy moans which slip from between his parted lips when John sinks his teeth into his flesh.

There may come a time when they have to acknowledge what's happening here, to say what this is and give it a name, to take it from this dark place and out into the world, but laying on a mattress on the floor, wrapped up in Sherlock's arms, staring with unseeing eyes at the damp slightly moldy walls, John decides that for now the boarders to their quiet land can stay closed.

For now the only communication he needs is the touch of Sherlock's hand upon his own to know he is loved.


End file.
